Now that the NCAA Tournament has tipped off, senior vice president for Nielsen Sports Tom Ziangas talks about how important March Madness is to the CBS brand as well as the basketball tournament’s appeal to advertisers.
“The one thing you think about as far as the NCAA tournament is it’s synonymous with CBS,” said Ziangas. “I think advertisers understand that. That’s why you have people like Coke and AT&T – and even GM is actually coming back to the tournament when they pulled out of the Super Bowl. Having that cache …

The banking industry increased ad buys during televised sports events by 36% in 2008, despite an overall 10% cut on all TV buys, according to an analysis by The Nielsen Company.
Banks spent $122 million – or 18.7% of all its TV ad dollars – on sports event programming in 2008. In 2007, the banking industry spent $90 million on sports broadcasts, or 12.5% of the industry’s total TV ad expenditures
“In today’s market, the banking industry is wise to target its ads to sports audiences,” said Tom Ziangas, SVP for Nielsen Sports. “Not …